Tell Me I'm Crazy, Maybe I Know
by Phoebonica
Summary: Lemony thinks Kit can do better. Big spoilers for The End.


Disclaimer: I do not own ASOUE, I just write fanfic. And I'm aware that the title is a misquote, but that's how I always end up singing it.

**Tell Me I'm Crazy, Maybe I Know**

"But what can you possibly see in him?" Lemony asks, petulant, glaring at her eyes in the mirror as Kit presses ice to her forehead to numb herself for the tweezers and tries to think what answer to give this time. There isn't one. There are an infinite number of things but when she tries to pin one of them down they all scatter and flee, becoming trivial.

"What do you see in Beatrice?" she throws back at him instead, pulling the first hair from between her eyebrows and wincing slightly despite the cold. "Name me one specific thing."

He stands, glowering. "You cannot possibly compare –"

"I think I can, Lemony." Kit turns around in her chair, meeting his eyes and holding her gaze until his outrage fades and he sits back down. "You could tell me how noble and brave and intelligent she is, and you'd be right. But you're not going to say that because that's not why anyone really falls in love. There are plenty of wonderful people in the world, but the reasons we love one another are –"

"Olaf's a wonderful person, is he?" Lemony interrupts, with bitter sarcasm.

"I know you don't like him," Kit says, softly, "and I understand _why_ you don't like him, but I do. I love him. You don't have to understand it, but just accept for once that that's how I feel."

Lemony mutters something she can't catch, although she's sure the words _accept how_ I _feel_ were in there somewhere. Kit sighs internally, turning back to the mirror. When you love someone, she thinks, this is the problem; it's not about being a good person. It never is. It's about how long you can talk for and how long you can go on listening for, and the things you have in common and the interest you suddenly feel in the things you don't have in common. It's about going to movies you don't like all that much and taking boat rides that aren't really all that special, and never wanting them to end because of who you're with, and it's about getting home after midnight and not making it to the bedroom or even the couch, crashing against the wall in a tangle of hands and lips and bodies because that's all you can do right now. And it's about all the things you keep hidden, all the parts of yourself that live under a layer of makeup and poses and theatrics that you're suddenly willing to wipe away, and all the parts of the other person that they keep hidden but will show to you, because they're yours now as well.

Olaf is mostly things he keeps hidden, which is why Lemony never understands, not in all the months they've been having this conversation, and why she'll never tell him _look in the mirror some time_ even though when they sneer at each other's masks the dramatic irony is so thick that she could pick it up and throw it at them.

Lemony opens his mouth to speak again, and she holds her hand up, stopping him. "I know what he was like in school," she says. "I didn't like him then either, if you recall. He was an obnoxious little twit. I _know_. But we've all changed."

"I don't see any evidence of that in his case."

"It's there." Kit puts down the tweezers and stands up. "People have flaws. We love one another in spite of those flaws. You love…" But she can't say _Beatrice_, who may have a tendency to believe too much in what she reads and a sense of righteousness that occasionally skirts the edge of fanaticism, but who in Lemony's eyes is made of diamond, unbreakable, impervious to damage. "You love me," she says, "and I'm stubborn and have terrible taste in boyfriends."

He half-laughs, trying to smother it behind his hand and not succeeding, and she can tell in his eyes that he's relented, for tonight. She smiles, coming over to sit beside him on the bed. "I'll see you tomorrow," she promises. She puts her arms round him for a second, squeezes him close.

"Enjoy your date," he says. "Somehow," he adds as she gets up to leave, and she rolls her eyes and throws a pillow at his head. He flings up his arms as it hits him and almost throws himself off the bed. Kit raises her newly defined eyebrows. Some day, she's just going to come right out and say it. _You're as bad as each other._


End file.
